by E J Frost
“Sure, microfauna. Bengal tigers. The occasional Great White shark.” I pour myself a cup of coffee and sit back on the blanket, enjoying the aroma before I take a sip. “I don’t like thinking of myself as food, Jou.”
He pushes the picnic remains out of the way and stretches out on his side, lying along my legs. Trails his fingertips up and down my thigh, warm through the denim of my jeans. “It’s just the truth, sweetness. You know I don’t do illusion.”
I know he’s done his best to shatter mine. I reach out and flick one of his dreadlocks back over his shoulder. I’ve seen his true-form, and I know that whatever his dreadlocks are, they’re not hair. “This is an illusion.”
“Mmm, more like a protective skin. Like those suits you humans wear when you’re handling toxic shit.”
“A Hazmat suit?”
“Yeah, one of those. Helps me breathe your air an’ endure your sun.”
It didn’t occur to me, but of course the air of Hell would be different. And the light. Wherever Hell is, it’s not part of Earth’s plane. “Would the air and sunlight hurt you without the skin?”
He shrugs the shoulder he’s not leaning on. “Probably not right now, when I’m so pumped up on your power. An’ I’m stronger now than when I’ve been here before. But when I was a manes, breathin’ your air was like tryin’ to breathe ice. Felt like I was dyin’ the whole time. Fuckin’ torture.”
Yet another reason why it’s wrong to summon demons to our world. “Do you grow the protective skin? Is that why you looked different when you were coming through my shower?” The memory of that spined arm is still a little too fresh.
“Yeah, I kind of spin it. It’s hard to describe. Bein’ summoned’s like bein’ born. It’s painful. Disorienting. Everythin’ feels raw. When you put yourself back together, you shape the glove.”
“Does it cost you to hold onto it? You said the other morning that you were having trouble.” When his tail made a surprise appearance in my bed.
He nods, and trails his fingers a little closer to my fly. “I’m aware of it. Like you’re aware of clothes.”
“Can you take it off and put it on like clothes?”
“Sorta. I can burn through it, and then spin it out again. Lotta effort, though.” His fingers reach their intended destination. He grins at my protest. “Just step sideways with me, sweetness. No one’ll see.”
Anyone with the Sight will see. “You said other demons and Elementals could see. That you didn’t want them interrupting us, that day we were down in the city.”
He sighs. “You would remember that right now. How ‘bout we head home then? I’m ready for dessert.”
I pack up the thermos and last bits of the picnic, even as I observe, “Dessert? You’ve had nine-tenths of a pecan pie and two apples. You can’t possibly be hungry.”
He grabs me from behind as I bend over the basket. Pulls me back against him, so my butt snugs against his groin. He’s very hungry. “Jou!”
“Watchin’ you eat’s a turn-on. C’mon, sweetness, I’ll race you back. First one to the car gets the first orgasm.”
I swat him until he lets me go, then grab the tote bag and velvet blazer, before I bolt down the hill and sprint down the bike path towards the car. Leave him cursing as he gathers the blanket and picnic basket. He’ll probably still beat me. His legs are yards longer than mine and I’m not much of a runner, but I want that first orgasm, so I give him a race.
Chapter 35
I win the first orgasm – only because he lets me – which I claim in the bath, since I’m sweat-sticky from the run, in a wool sweater, no less. Thankfully, none of my family makes an appearance, either during or afterwards, while Jou holds me in his lap, still filling me, cradling me in his arms and the warm water. His fingers trace wet patterns on the skin of my inner thigh and breast, and when I see a glimmer through my lashes, which are almost closed as I drift in the aftermath, I put my hands over his.
“What are you doing?” I ask. My voice is a little hoarse from panting after my run – I can walk a million miles but running is really not my thing – and from moaning during my climax.
“Writin’ my name on you.”
Both the idea of him marking me with his name and his deep voice make my insides clench. Tightening around his hardness nearly brings me again and I roll my head on his chest. “Jou—”
“You’ve never asked my true-name,” he says. His fingers slip down my thigh and he traces the pattern again over my mons. “Why not, sweetness?”
I’m afraid I might hurt him with it. “Too much temptation,” I tell him truthfully.
“Avoidin’ power again, huh?”
“Yes,” I say huskily. God, he can turn me on with the lightest touch. “Could I control you with your true name? The way Rowena did?”
“Wasn’t my true-name she had on me. It was that fucking ring, and the binding she clamped on my balls.” Like the binding he’s put on me. “She didn’t have enough juice to hurt me with my name. But, yeah, you could probably do me some damage with it. I haven’t decided yet whether I’m gonna give it to you. Just curious as to why you haven’t asked.”
“I don’t want to know it,” I say, deciding right then and there. I don’t want any more control over him, despite the safety it might offer. The more I learn about warlocks trying to control demons, the more I see how totally wrong it is. “Don’t tell me, okay?”
“Okay.” His fingers slip further down between my legs. Is he tracing his sigil on my clitoris? My eyes roll back in my head. “Mmm, you like that.” I feel his deep rumble all the way through me. And yes, yes, I do like that. Very much.
He rocks a little inside me and I grab onto the edges of the tub, on the verge again. He chuckles, low and dark. “We’re gonna have to move this to your bed, sweetness. You’re gettin’ me wound up and I can’t come in here.”
That pulls me back from the hot abyss. I use my hold on the tub’s rim to pull myself up. He helps me with his hands on my hips and slowly withdraws from me as I lift myself off him, a move every nerve-ending south of my waist protests.
I pull the plug so the bath drains, and climb out. Jou rises and shakes himself a little, happily not the way a dog would so there’s no spatter. A gout of steam rises from his skin; he’s drying himself off. I twirl my fingers to shape a cantrip that does the same for me.
He takes my hand and leads me into the bedroom. When the door closes behind us, I feel him brush it with power, and my wards rise. They flare red-hot in my mind for a moment, and I wonder if that’s because the demon’s activated them. My magic doesn’t usually carry any sense of heat.
I stop wondering when he pulls me down onto the bed and rolls me under him. “Lift your knees,” he commands. The order, and the dark treacle tone in which he delivers it, make me shiver. Naturally, I begin to wriggle across the bed in a mock-attempt to get away. He growls and rolls me over. Grabs my hips. Pushes my legs apart with his knee. His hand between my shoulders shoves me down into the comforter, rumpled by my struggle. Face-down in the cool blankets, I gasp, breathless from his rough handling, and from excitement.
He rubs his fingers up and down my labia. “You’re so swollen, sweetness,” he growls. “I love how soft you are.” He presses himself against me, all hot, silky skin against my rear, and then he’s entering me, thick and full and oh my God so hard. I collapse onto the bed and it’s only his strong hands on my hips that hold me up as he begins to thrust. He glides in and out, rubbing all the way from my opening to my core and back again. That’s so good. I arch my back. He slides deep, deliciously deep, and I clench around him. He works himself in tight circles, stimulating me everywhere with the thick ridge of his glans, while I writhe under him.
He pulls out, then suddenly pounds into me, slamming our bodies together. I scream with surprise, and then with release as his wild motion hurtles me straight over the edge. He follows me a moment later, grunting my name. His weight comes down on me and crushes me into the mattress.
/>
When I can breathe again, still a little dazed, I reach back and pat him on the hip. “Wow, Jou.”
He lifts his head from where he’s breathing hard into my hair. “Who’s Jou?”
Shit. He doesn’t know who he is. I hate this part. I wriggle under him. “Let me up.”
“No.” His weight shifts. His heavy hand descends on my shoulder, keeping me pinned to the bed. “Where are we?”
“We’re in my bedroom. Everything’s okay. You’re safe.” Although this is beginning to feel very not safe to me. Having him hold me down while we were going at it was sexy; having him hold me down while he doesn’t remember anything is a little scary.
“Who are you?”
“Tsara.” Why doesn’t he know who I am? He knew last time. “Can you get off of me now? This is creeping me out.”
He strokes his hand down my back. That feels better than him holding me down. “I like you where you are.” He shifts, sliding his thigh over mine, and his movement makes me realize he’s still inside me.
Okay, that’s beyond enough.
“Jou, get out of me. I’m not kidding around. You’re freaking me out.”
“Huh?” He sighs heavily. Rubs his hand up and down my back; shifts his hips so I can feel him slide inside me. “I like that where it is, too.”
I don’t mind it where it is. Now that he’s not so hard, it’s comfortable, and it would be sexy and sweet to be connected during the afterglow, if his amnesia hadn’t totally ruined it.
“Jou, please?”
He leans down and kisses my temple, then withdraws from me and shifts to the side. I roll so I can look at him, bunching the covers around me. Having him see me naked when he doesn’t know who I am is kind of freaky, too.
He doesn’t seem concerned about a stranger seeing him naked. He lies across my bed, his back to the headboard. The pale moonlight filtering through the curtains renders his golden skin in shades of gray, strokes shadow along his jaw and under his chin, down the dip between his chest muscles and over the contours of his stomach, taut even in relaxation. I touch his belly tentatively. Circle the indentation of his belly-button with my forefinger. I know he’s slightly ticklish there.
He chuckles. Catches my hand and guides it lower, down the trail of hair on his belly and into the thicket at his groin. His body hair is black and in the moonlight, his pubic hair looks like ink. I spear my fingers through it, white against black, and enjoy the contrast.
“Tsara,” he rolls my name around on his tongue. “How well d’you know me?”
I stop messing around with his groin. As soon as my fingers stop moving, something wet and warm brushes them. His nethertongue. That’s extremely freaky, even if it feels amazing during sex. “Um, pretty well, I guess.”
“You my seggurach? ‘Cause I can’t feel you in my head. But I can, mmm, taste you.”
Back to this. Even when he doesn’t remember anything. And whose stupid idea was it for him to stay out of my mind for a whole day? I didn’t have to explain anything when he was in my head. “That’s still up for discussion.”
“You my whore?”
“Your what?” I snatch my hand back like he’s burned me.
“My hlore—”
“I heard you the first time. No, I am not your whore. Fuck, Jou. Great selective memory loss you have there. You can’t remember who you are or who I am, but you can remember what a whore is—”
He reaches for me, but I pull away from him and grab the blankets up around me. He really doesn’t get to see me naked after calling me a whore.
“Tsara,” he growls, and I freeze, because his growl is scary when he doesn’t remember anything. “Stop that. Whatever name you put to it, you’re mine. I can feel it. So stop hidin’ from me.” He pulls he blankets away and gathers me to him.
“We won’t be putting that name to it,” I say. “Not ever again.” I don’t resist him, because I don’t want to give him an incentive to overpower me. Not when he was just so aggressive during sex. But I don’t relax into him the way I usually would, either.
“Maybe that ain’t the right word,” he offers softly, stroking my hair.
“No, it definitely isn’t.”
“You are human, though, ain’t you? You smell human. Your power tastes human.”
“What do humans smell like?” I ask, still miffed but slightly curious.
“Juicy.” He takes a deep sniff of my hair. “Mmm, rich. Meaty.”
Gross. “Okay, well, yes, I am human.”
“An’ you’re bound to me but you ain’t my seggurach.”
And I’m never going to be at the rate he’s going tonight. “Can we drop this? I’m tired.” I’m not fatigued, but this conversation is exhausting. “Will you remember this when we wake up?”
“Dunnow, will I?” he asks into my hair.
“I think so. If you do, can you come back into my mind when you wake up? I really don’t like this.”
“Sure.” He pulls the covers over both of us, although I don’t really need them with his body heat. I rest my face against his shoulder, close my eyes and try to sleep. It takes a long time, and from his breathing and small movements, I’d guess that he doesn’t find sleep any faster than I do.
I wake to his mouth on mine. His arms tight around me and his hand in my hair. “Sweetness,” he says between kisses. “You awake?”
“Muh-huh.” I crack open an eye. Still dark in my bedroom. I definitely don’t have to get up if it’s still dark.
Look at me, he says into my mind.
I guess he remembered.
I stretch. Brush his dreadlocks over his shoulder as I wrap my arm around his neck, Flex my legs against his. And finally, look up into his eyes. Those dark eyes; the pupil shimmering with a trace of neon.
“Hi,” I whisper.
Don’t ‘hi’ me this morning. I didn’t call you a whore. You know I didn’t. Why the fuck did you decide to pick a fight with me when I was that confused?
I shove his chest and scoot away from him in the bed. “It sounded like ‘whore,’ Jou! Why would you decide to pick a fight with me now when you know I’m not a morning person?”
“’Cause we gotta get this straight,” he growls. He goes up on one elbow and glowers at me, eyes blazing so brightly I have to squint into the glare. “When I say somethin’ you don’t understand, fuckin’ ask me!”
“How about you don’t go using words I don’t understand, which sound exactly like insults!” I scoot back another few inches and pull the blankets over me. He doesn’t get to see me naked when we’re fighting, either. “Your post-whatever-amnesia is great, Jou. Very selective—”
“I don’t like it, either,” he growls. “Why d’you think I don’t come? Ain’t ‘cause I don’t want to. You make me need to sow you – worse’n any human I’ve ever been with – an’ then you use it against me when I fuckin’ do.”
“Sow me? I’m not a field, Jou! If you don’t like it, don’t come—” I snap my mouth shut when I hear how selfish that sounds. Am I really that mean? No, he’s just making me crazy. “I didn’t mean that.”
“I won’t anymore.” He turns his head away, letting his dreadlocks fall over his face. The lightshow dies to a faint glow. He rolls onto his front and props his head in his hands. Rubs his face.
“Jou, I didn’t mean that.” I touch his shoulder tentatively, and when he doesn’t shrug me off, rub my hand up and down his back. “I didn’t mean it. You should be able to come. I’ll just—” I don’t know what I’ll just. Damn. “I’ll work on a memory charm for you or something. I don’t know. But you should be able to come. It’s not fair on you.”
“I got a memory charm.” He turns his head and looks at the headboard. “Fuck, why didn’t I see it last night? I’m gonna have to paint arrows all around the room.”
I glance at the headboard, and the wall behind it. The wall he evidently wrote something important on, which I can’t see even with my Sight. The wall he had his back to all night. “Sor
ry, I guess I should have told you to read it. I can’t see it, you know. I didn’t know if it was still there.”
“It’ll be there until the wall’s torn down. You can’t see it ‘cause it ain’t written in your spit.”
“You wrote on my wall with spit? Gross, Jou.”
He chuckles. “Coulda done it with come, sweetness. Though you mighta been able to see that. Dries kinda shiny.”
Disgusting. “Will you tell me what it says?”
“No. Wouldn’t make any sense to you anyway. Like I said, it’s a memory charm. Just a way for me to find my way back. ‘Sides, you said you didn’t want to know my true-name.”
“Is that what’s written there?” I ask. It strikes me that’s a dangerous thing to have written on my bedroom wall. Just because I can’t see it, doesn’t mean no one else can.
“Yeah.” He reaches out and hooks his hand around my waist. Pulls me across the bed and tucks me under him. “Next time, if I don’t look at that wall first thing, you remind me.”
At least there will be a next time. “Okay.”
He shakes his dreadlocks back over his shoulders and looks down into my eyes. “I didn’t like that. Wakin’ up and remembering how you looked at me. How cold you were after. How you yelled at me to get out of you—”
I frame his face with my hands. “I didn’t yell.”
“I didn’t like it, any of it. I wanted to sleep inside you.”
I can’t imagine how sore that would leave me; I’d better brew some more healing potions. “That’s a really bad word, Jou.”
“Hlore’s just a human who’s offered their soul to a demon, sweetness, nothing more.”
I tug on one of his dreads. “That doesn’t actually make it any better, given how I feel about that particular subject. Can we drop it? I’m sorry it happened. I’m sorry I didn’t remind you about that wall, and I’m sorry I reacted the way I did.” Although I can’t see reacting any other way to being called a whore, whether it’s my body or my soul I’m selling. Whatever. “Let’s forget about it, okay?”
